It is often said that when he was outlining socialism Marx forgot to factor in human instinct, and that we are too naturally greedy for his theories ever to work. It occurred to me today, on the way to Asda, that he was right that the best, fairest and equitable state for mankind to live in is indeed socialism, and that what Marx was suggesting is a complete paradigm shift in our mentality. For nirvana to be achieved, we must all adopt a completely new mindset: we must stop measuring ourselves by how much we earn; we must do away with arbitrary barriers between social groups; we must outgrow competition and work together. We must see eachother as of equal worth, irrespective ability, gender or whatever. As Marx himself famously wrote, ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’; things would no longer be ‘me me me’. We need to move away from the idea that competition is the best way to solve problems and ensure things improve: competition demands short cuts and quick fixes, whereas if people work together toward some overarching goal, with some sort of director making sure the available resources get used most efficiently, that goal is achieved in the best possible way. Also, that director can also ensure that those people with less obvious skills, like myself, can contribute, whereas employers focussed solely on profit see only the need for efficiency and speed. People with disabilities are left by the wayside by capitalism, their potential wasted.

The prime obstacle to this goal is capitalism itself – the greedy, selfish right-wing mentality that prises inequality. It is capitalism which traps us, not the welfare state, for it forces people to think in limited, narrow, antagonistic terms. Thus to flourish we must do away with this simplistic discourse, and grow beyond it. For that to occur, though, a fundamental change in our mindset must happen.